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Celebrating 100 years of votes for women

Our future will become the past of other women

By Eavan Boland
Illustrated by Paula McGloin

Celebrating 100 years since the women of Ireland, Mná na hÉireann, were granted suffrage and first cast their ballots in the 1918 election, Eavan Boland, Hon. MRIA has written a new poem for the occasion.

'Our future will become the past of other women' was commissioned by the Government of Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy to be read at the UN and in Ireland during the centenary commemorations.

This limited-edition poem is now OUT OF STOCK. You can watch a video of the poem with a voiceover by Fiona Shaw here below or read the poem online.

The poem has been translated into Irish and the other UN languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian with translations by poets Reem Dawood, Huiyi Bao, Pura López-Colomé, Aifric Mac Aodha, Grigory Kruzhkov and Clíona Ní Ríordáin. We are grateful to Literature Ireland for assisting with the selection of the translators. Our partners at The Irish Times have published the poem in all languages.

The Academy has produced a limited edition illustrated book featuring all the translations. Each page folds out and is illustrated by Paula McGloin with a figure inspired by the poem. You can view extracted pages below. The book is published and sold exclusively by the Royal Irish Academy.